As I was leaving the sushi restaurant where I had lunch, a guy coming out of the 7-11 next door said hi and exchanged a little small talk. I got the sense from his demeanor that he was having a rough go of it, but he didn’t ask for money. A guy came out of the 7-11 and he asked him “can you share some change, my man?” The guy never even acknowledged him and kept walking. I asked “can you use a few dollars?” He very humbly acknowledged that he did but said he didn’t want to ask me.

I gave him the few singles I had in my wallet and he was humbly grateful for the little gesture. As I was about to walk away, I stopped and turned back. “I don’t have much cash, but do you want something to eat? I can put it on a card.” His eyes lit up and he asked for some chips or something like that. I was about to go inside 7-11 when the McDonald’s next door caught my eye. I offered to walk over with him and buy him an actual meal. He was taken aback and gratefully accepted.

“I just have to get my phone inside,” he said. He then quickly added “it’s an Obama phone, it’s free.” I told him I didn’t really care – someone with a brand new iPhone could have been struck by a tragedy and found themselves having fallen on hard times. He explained that when people see the phone (it looks like a smartphone but it has very limited features), they sometimes respond “you have a phone.” Huh? “You can’t eat an iPhone,” I said.

As we walked over to McDonald’s we talked about how we all should have a little kindness, especially in our current political climate where the ruling party would like public assistance to go the way of the dinosaurs (you know, those giant lizards that kids used to keep as pets a few thousand years ago). He excitedly said he was going to order a Big Mac value meal, that he hadn’t had a Big Mac in a while. I had just spent $35 on sushi and here was someone who was excited and grateful to be having a Big Mac.

He told me his name was David and that he was struggling to get by. He lost his job and that meant he couldn’t pay his rent. He went through a divorce. Family who he had helped in the past weren’t there for him when he fell on hard times. He was working temp jobs and doing his best to get by while he tried to find a job. But it was a struggle.

He ordered the large Big Mac value meal and I told him to add a dessert or something if he wanted it (how can you pass up those pies?). I paid for his meal and said my goodbyes – I asked him to pay the kindness forward to someone else once he gets back on his feet – and rushed off to my car before my meter expired.

It isn’t the first time I’ve bought someone lunch at that McDonald’s, nor even the second. I’ve been struck by the gratitude each time I’ve done it – no one has ever declined saying they just want money or taken the gesture for granted (well, one person sort of did – it turned out she wasn’t alone and her friend was hungry too). Maybe it’s something about that store? I spent less than a third of what I just spent on my lunch (and little more than the cost of the indulgent Unicorn Frappuccino I haven’t had a chance to try) but to him it meant a lot.

Many of us live just one unfortunate incident away from finding ourselves in similar situation – a lost job, an accident, an illness, divorce, a family tragedy. In this climate, with an administration that would gladly cut the supports of what is left of our social safety net, it’s sometimes worth stepping back and contemplating.

I started this blog to talk about things like my experiences going back to school, interesting issues that happen in the news, and my travel adventures.

Well, I’ve failed miserably.

My second semester of school is winding down and I have yet to post anything about it.

The United Airlines fiasco was a good opportunity to talk about contract law, but I kept my comments to Facebook and Twitter.

And travel… well, I guess I can salvage that – I am taking my next trip in two weeks. I was talked into attending the ACC Europe Conference in Cascais, Portugal, so I am taking some extra time to travel. I’ll head first to Edinburgh, so I can see my school in person. Then it’s off to London (which I have been hesitant to visit because of painful memories tied to the city/region) for 4 days. Then I head down to Portugal. After the conference, I’ll spend a few extra days in Lisbon.

So we’ll see… I’ll try to be better at finding time to do this blogging thing. For now, I’ve got an exam to work on…

Hello and welcome to my third attempt at a blog. Hopefully this platform will be a little more user-friendly than the last and hopefully I’ll stick with it this time.

What’s different this time? That’s a valid question. I have been feeling a little stagnant in my life and so I have started to take some steps to fix that.

Step 1 is just to broaden my horizons intellectually, wherever that might lead. Two years ago, I found an online graduate program in Intellectual Property Law that really interested me. Unfortunately, some really difficult things happened in my personal life (the impetus for my last attempt at blogging, although under a pseudonym) that prevented me from pursuing that program. But now I am going ahead with the application and hopefully I will get accepted.

The second thing is that I am trying to travel more and explore places I haven’t visited. I have been to 17 countries (counting the UK as one country as the linked app does, and if you count the US, a cruise stop in Ensenada, Vatican City, and that time I was at the demilitarized zone in Korea and was able to go about 10 feet across the border into North Korea) and 28 or 29 states (counting some that I have driven through, and one where I have visited multiple times but never really explored). Add in random airports I have passed through, and those counts goes up a little. I have a trip tentatively planned for later this year, so hopefully that will add at least one country to the list.

So my plan is to share interesting (at least to me) things I learn on those two journeys – whether new legal or historical tidbits, travel experiences, photos, etc. And there are the random musings I may choose to share about things that interest me (law, politics, hockey, nerdy stuff, pictures of my cats…) and the world around me.

About this site…

This is my third attempt at a blog (and even more than that at a website). Hopefully I’ll stick with it this time.

My plan is to share interesting (at least to me) things I learn – whether new legal or historical tidbits, travel experiences, photos, etc. And there are the random musings I may choose to share about things that interest me (law, politics, hockey, nerdy stuff, pictures of my cats…) and the world around me.

And, I suppose I should note, nothing I post should be attributed to any employer I work for or organization I belong to. These are just my own thoughts and musings.